MADD R.I. holds 31st candlelight vigil to honor victims of drunk driving at event at Smithfield High School

Thursday

Dec 5, 2013 at 12:01 AM

SMITHFIELD — They stood in a line way too long waiting to take their turn at the microphone. They told of wrenching grief at losing sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and friends to drunken drivers.

By Katie Mulvaney

SMITHFIELD — They stood in a line way too long waiting to take their turn at the microphone. They told of wrenching grief at losing sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, and friends to drunken drivers. Their voices cracked and tears fell at losses, some that occurred more than three decades ago.

Three-hundred-plus gathered at Smithfield High School Wednesday for Mothers Against Drunk Driving Rhode Island chapter’s 31{+s}{+t} candlelight vigil to honor those lost to drunken drivers and the other victims — the families and friends left behind. It was an event marked by music and spoken tributes and recollections that was also part cautionary.

For Erica DeBerardis, the vigil was a homecoming to the school she and her younger sister, Haley, graduated from. DeBerardis told of pride at her little sister’s enrollment at the University of Rhode Island.

Haley had returned home that Columbus Day weekend in 2005 to spend time with friends when a car driven by a drunken driver collided head-on with the vehicle she was in on Route 6.

“My sister has been sentenced to serve a life term … ,” DeBerardis said. “It has been eight years since I have heard my sister’s laugh.”

As DeBerardis spoke, Haley sat in the front of the auditorium in a wheelchair, with a knit hat pulled over her ears, her head tipped toward the ceiling. Haley, she said, is unable to express emotions or eat on her own, dependent on others for her every need. Her parents are racked with worry and fear over her sister’s seizures and infections.

“For my sister Haley, each day has been longer than the day before,” DeBerardis said. “Each and every day we grieve the loss of my sister Haley.”

Still, she said, she has turned her anger into gratitude. She maintains faith that one day it will be Haley who addresses the crowd.

Shawn Rousseau, of Glocester, was sentenced to serve six years to serve for drunken driving in the crash.

David Barbera spoke of watching his daughter, Kimberly, die after being taken off life support in July 2009. She had been injured in a drunken driving crash.

“Now I only have a picture to talk to,” Barbera said. He hoped state lawmakers would stiffen the punishments for drunken driving.

Henry Lamb, 22, of Charlestown, was sentenced to serve seven years for driving under the influence.

State police Col. Steven G. O’Donnell told the crowd, which included dozens of law enforcement officers, that 24 people were killed in drunken driving crashes last year in Rhode Island, the same as the number of people murdered.

“Forty-eight people were killed by homicide,” O’Donnell said.

“You’re always looking for the bad guy,’ O’Donnell told the dozens municipal and state police academy graduates on hand. “Well, that’s the bad guy,” he said of people driving under the influence.

He urged the teenagers in the room to hear the message and to pass it along.

“Sing that song. Send that message. This needs to stop.”

(Correction: An earlier version of this story attributed a quote by David Barbera to the wrong person.)